The sidebar contains information that relates to the page you are viewing. It features a link to page revision history, a watchlist star that lets you put the page into your watchlist or remove it, and three colored boxes displaying Tags, Incoming Links, and Attachments.

Toggling the sidebar. Clicking the V shape in the right-hand corner of the page will make the sidebar vanish. Click the > to bring back the sidebar.

The sidebar boxes are presented in the following order:

Tags. This is a list of all the Tags that have been applied to the page.

Incoming links. This is a list of all the pages that have a link to the page you are currently viewing.

You are not isolated with Socialtext. You can connect a Socialtext workspace to the rest of the Web. Socialtext provides a number of ways to connect a workspace to other dynamic web services.

Instant Messaging and Presence

Do you have an instant messaging service? A conferencing service? You can link directly from a Socialtext workspace to your profile, so your colleagues can reach you with a simple click!

In Simple mode, using WikiWidgets, you can create a link to various IM services. From the Insert menu in the toolbar, choose AIM link, Yahoo link, or Skype link, and add your account information for the service you'd like to link to.

Google and Technorati

A Socialtext Workspace makes it easy to keep the Web's best information inside your pages. You can place Google searches directly on a page. They will be constantly and automatically updated by Socialtext.

In Simple mode, using WikiWidgets, you can create a feed of the results of a particular Google search. From the Insert menu in the toolbar, choose Google search, and fill out the resulting dialog box to create the search you want to appear on the page.

In advanced mode, if you write {googlesoap: social software}, it will show

Service description 'http://api.google.com/GoogleSearch.wsdl' can't be loaded: 404 Not Found

Web feeds (RSS, Atom): in and out

Feeds go out

A Socialtext workspace lets you keep track of changes in a workspace by using an external newsreader without going back to the workspace. Socialtext supports both RSS and Atom, the most popular subscription formats. See the RSS Tutorial for details and uses. In Socialtext workspaces, individual pages, recent changes, watchlists, and weblogs have RSS feeds.

Subscribe to a Socialtext feed. The RSS button appears wherever RSS is available. To subscribe, click on it, copy the URL, and paste the URL into your news aggregator.

Most aggregators will immediately download entries from the subscription. Some aggregators will check for updates when they start, at hourly intervals or on the schedule you set to poll for the latest updates.

Password protection. If you are in a private, password-protected workspace, check your aggregator's instructions for authentication (password login).

SECURITY WARNING: Private, password-protected Socialtext workspaces also provide password protection for your subscription feeds. Some aggregators let you log in by putting your username and password in the URL (web address). Do not do this. This login method is not secure. NewsGator is an example of an aggregator that handles authentication without revealing names and passwords.

Feeds come in

Socialtext also enables you to display dynamic external data sources through subscriptions directly on pages. If you want to keep track of a client in the news or you want to keep track of yourself in the news, embedding a news ticker on their profile page is a great way to do it.

Other websites also will display the orange RSS button: If you click on that button, you will be shown the feed. Just copy the address from the browser's address bar. Say the address was

Then, you can subscribe to the feed headlines by using WikiWidgets. From the Insert menu in the toolbar, choose "RSS feed" and paste the address you copied into the dialog box. An RSS feed WikiWidget will be created.

You can also do this from Advanced mode by writing:

{fetchrss: http://example.com/rss.xml}.

For example,

{fetchrss: http://www.socialtext.com/weblog/rss.xml} will show recent headlines from the Socialtext blog:

fetchrss: http://www.socialtext.com/weblog/rss.xml

There was an error: 404 Not Found

To show the full text of a feed, write:

{fetchrss: http://example.com/rss.xml full}

Note: While you can't import an RSS feed from another workspace, you can get the same results in a different way. To show a list of recently changed pages in a workspace, use {recent-changes: <workspace>} where <workspace> is the name of the workspace to watch.

Technorati

Technorati is a weblog search service that searches millions of weblogs. Technorati provides a number of valuable services which are integrated into a Socialtext workspace.

Technorati search. Do you want to know what other people are saying about you? If so, you can display the Technorati Cosmos of your website right in your workspace. This will show other weblogs which have recently mentioned your website.

In Simple mode, using WikiWidgets, you can create a feed of the results of a particular Technorati search. From the Insert menu in the toolbar, choose Technorati search, and fill out the resulting dialog box to create the search you want to appear on the page.

If you prefer to use Advanced mode, write {technorati: http://www.example.com}, using your website URL instead. For example, {technorati: http://www.socialtext.com}.

Weblog pings. If you want free publicity, public Socialtext Eventspaces can send "weblog pings" to Technorati or other weblog notification services. Pings update others you have recently mentioned that you are talking about them. Pings tie discussions across the whole Web together, which is a great way to stay close to your partners, clients, and customers. Best of all, Socialtext workspaces can do this automatically for you!

Note: Please speak to your Socialtext account manager to have weblog pings for Technorati and other web services enabled on your Eventspace.

Tag links. Socialtext categories in Eventspaces (public workspace) pages are automatically linked to other information resources with the same category using the new "tag links" syntax supported by Technorati, Flickr, del.icio.us and other web services. You don't have to do anything different to enable tag links, they are automatically generated when you place pages into Socialtext categories.